Connecting research and practice through the ASTD research committee: Staying relevant in an electronic world
✍ Scribed by Laurie J. Bassi
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 164 KB
- Volume
- 9
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1044-8004
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Staying Relevant in an Electronic World
The struggle between maintaining high standards of scholarship and ensuring the relevance of scholarship is by no means new. Nor is it unique to scholars in the field of human resource development (HRD). Given rapid ongoing changes in organizations, however, the rigor-relevance struggle appears to be intensifyng rather than diminishing. Practitioners constantly face new dilemmas in their practice-dilemmas that scholars have not yet had an opportunity to address. As a result, many practitioners need to make quick decisions when confronted with confusing situations. They have little time to consult scholars and to consider how scholars' insights and understandings might contribute to the best choice.
Innovations such as the World Wide Web, which is certainly one of the forces accelerating change, have also had an effect on the struggle faced by scholars who seek to be relevant. As more and more practitioners turn to the Internet when seeking solutions to their problems and input in their decision making, scholars face yet another challenge to their relevance. The printed word-and the refereed print word, in particular-is a very slow medium for communication in an increasingly electronic world.
Even when practitioners do seek scholarly input to guide their decisions, they often encounter at least four obstacles. First, although much research contains information that is potentially useful, the findings often are not written in a way that makes them easily accessible. Second, the sheer volume of research can be overwhelming. On many topics, there are dozens of books and hundreds of journal articles. The amount of time required to make sense of them all is prohibitive. Third, not all research is of equal quality Some research findings merit more weight than others, but making these judgments takes time and requires a broad and deep understanding of the precise problem being addressed, of the methodological issues, and of the background literature. Fourth, although some research may be relevant and of high quality, it usually focuses on a relatively narrow aspect of any given topic. Weaving together the insights of many authors takes time, insight, and expertise.